The Michigan State basketball program now has a prominent placed in the annals of Rosemont Horizon/AllState Arena history. Today saw the Spartans achieve “Miracle on Mannheim Part 2” in a game that is also historical from both a B1G and national college basketball perspective.

#2 MSU (26-3, 14-2) won at Northwestern (15-13, 6-9) today by a score of 65-60, in a game where they once trailed by 27 (43-16 with 4:18 to go in the first half. The 27 point comeback is the greatest in B1G history, and the largest biggest in the entire nation this decade. The all time record is 31-points, which was achieved all in the second-half, by Kentucky at LSU in 1994.

Your Michigan State Spartans, along with the Villanova Wildcats, are co-favorites to win it all according to the sports books. You know the saying in East Lansing, Michigan: “January, February, Izzo.” Now while Michigan State is dominant in March, the last weekend of the NCAA Tournament is in April, which has been the cruelest month to the Spartans.

Since their most recent national title in 2000, the Michigan State Spartans have been back to Final Four five times (2001, 2005, 2009, 2010, 2015), and they have only reached the title game in one of those five trips. MSU’s record is 1-5 on the April weekend of the big dance since the glorious night they cut down the nets after beating Florida in 2000.

How badly did Michigan State basketball need that win over Purdue this past weekend? Well, let’s put it this way- that triumph became just their second signature win of the season. It’s not the Spartans’ fault the UConn is not UConn this season, Notre Dame is not Notre Dame, and the B1G is a hallowed out shell of what the B1G typically is.

While none of this is MSU’s fault, it nonetheless drags down their resume anyway. Just like Purdue, and their case for a #1 seed, the excessive softness of the B1G this season has devalued their strength of schedule, and thus depreciated their tournament resume.

For more on a given prospect, click his name where hyper-linked, and that will take you to an in-depth feature piece on said player. Team needs were not taken into account, and the order was taken from Tankathon, who we linked here. You may not agree with the picks in this 2018 NBA mock draft, and yes, somebody will get left out, but you can air your grievances in the comments section.

It’s extremely unlikely that this #9 Michigan State basketball team will lose at winless-in-conference-play Illinois, but stranger things have happened. The 2000 national championship team actually lost to Wright State, yes the Horizon League school, on December 30, 1999.

The 2008-09 national championship runners-up Spartans actually lost to Northwestern on January 21, 2009 and Penn State on February 1. We’ve seen ultimately phenomenal Michigan State basketball teams even fall victim to really poor Illini sides before, as the 2015 Final Four squad somehow lost, at home no less, to a John Groce led group on February 7 of that year. This Michigan State team also lost to Texas Southern in pre-conference play. This was the famed “Golden Age” of MSU athletics year.

Illini fans have used many different names to describe the catastrophe that the two revenue-producing sports have become: dumpster fire, tire fire, house on fire, a cartoon dog sitting in the middle of a house fire saying “this is fine.” As egregiously awful as it currently is, and will likely be for a long time, it’s still not unprecedented- not in this conference, and not in this state.

If you go back to the 1980s, a time that many Northwestern fans often refer to as “the dark ages,” you’ll see that things can be worse. It’s always darkest, right before it gets pitch black. Tonight the Illini will welcome #9 Michigan State to their home court, and that’s coincidental (watch a BTN announcer will incorrectly call this “ironic”) as it was these same Spartans who were the most recent team to fall victim to an Illinois revenue producing team back on March 1st.

This current Michigan State basketball team is the class of the B1G, and there is a substantial drop-off below the Spartans. The Purdue Boilermakers were able to shake off a couple bad performances in the Bahamas over Thanksgiving weekend, and now they look very solid.

Then, once again, there’s a massive drop-off to the rest of the league. It’s MSU, Purdue and then just a bunch of guys. Some of those guys are better than the others, but there is no squad that is must see other than the Purdue and Michigan State basketball teams.

There is nothing Michigan State football fans love more than to get one up on Michigan, and right up there, just below that is griping about when the Wolverines undeservedly get one up on them. Hence the HILARIOUS meme below.

Of course, the Holiday Bowl is actually a better game than the Outback, and San Diego is a much, MUCH better city than Tampa Bay.

Not to mention the Spartans got matched with a superior opponent than the Wolverines did as well. Hey, the bowl selection process is a whole lot of things, but a meritocracy has never been one of them.

Any time you turn a Michigan State basketball game on this year, keep an eye on #5, the Spartans head-band wearing point guard named Cassius Winston. By the time his career in East Lansing is over, he might reside in the rarified air with Magic Johnson and Mateen Cleaves. MSU has an extremely storied tradition at the one- Scott Skiles, Kalin Lucas, Eric Snow, Drew Neitzel, Denzel Valentine (on occasion) to name a few.

Of course, Cleaves and Magic are on another level as they won a national title. Maybe Cassius Winston joins this elite of the elite club this April?

We’re used to seeing Tom Izzo angry on television. The cameras love to catch the Michigan State basketball coach fuming in the heat of battle moments. We don’t often see him smiling on TV, but he certainly is here, during Thursday’s episode of Judge Mathis.

On the December 7th edition of the program, Tom Izzo makes a special appearance in the courtroom. Have a watch of the clip below as Mathis reveals that his daughter was a student assistant to Izzo at Michigan State, before going on to law school and becoming a lawyer.

One-and-done isn’t really a thing that has come to East Lansing yet. Deyonta Davis (2016) is just the second Michigan State basketball player in history to declare for the NBA Draft after just his freshman year in school. Zach Randolph was the first, and that was way back in 2001.

Be sure you keep an eye on Jaren JacksonJr. He’s that kind of rare talent, much closer to being the finished product for the NBA than most kids who come to East Lansing.

Here’s a fun fact, he’s a almost a full year young for his class in school. He really could be a high school senior right now given his age.

There are three things to remember every single Tuesday night when ESPN releases the updated College Football Playoff Rankings.

First, this endeavor only merits a tweet and press release, not an entire television show. Maybe you could stretch this out into a two or three minute desk segment, but that’s really pushing it.

Secondly, all the controversies, real as well as the contrived debates created and then amplified by ESPN, will sort themselves out in the end. There’s no real reason to care all that strongly about the rankings until the last week of the season or conference championship weekend.